Before Chrifl 524. 51 



and fecuring them by walls, quays, or keys, for their veflels to He at 

 wiien loading and difcharging : and they called fuch harbours by an ap- 

 pellation, which has come dovvn to us under the hellenized name of Ko- 

 thon or Cothon *. \Strabo, L. xvii, />. 1190, ed. 1707 — Servius in Virg. 

 JEn. L. i, V. 431.] 



Wc are told by the orator Ariflides, who lived fo late as the fecond 

 century of the Chriftian aera, that the Carthaginians had a kind of mo- 

 ney made of leather. As they furely were not in want of the pretious 

 metals, I'uch leather money mud have been a kind of promilTory tickets 

 or notes, fomewhat of the nature of modern bank notes. 



The Carthaginian territory, which comprehended the north front of 

 Africa from the Straits to the border of Cyrenaica, a province of the 

 Macedonian kingdom of Egypt, was remarkably fertile ; and we may be 

 fure that the cultivation of it was not neglededf . The produce otibmc 

 parts of this extenfive coafl was fo luxuriant, that the Carthaginians 

 jealoufly prohibited ftrangers from landing, left the fight of fo delightful 

 a country fhould allure them to attempt making fettlements on it. Ee- 

 lides furnifhing corn and other proviiions for the capital city of Car- 

 thage, and many other great towns on or near the coaft, this rich coun- 

 try fupplied corn and other articles in great abundance for exportation. 

 South froni it lay the boundlefs interior country of Africa, which ap- 

 pears to have been better known to the Carthaginians, than it is now to 

 us amidft the blaze of difcoveries, of written and of printed informa- 

 tion : and there can be little doubt, that they carried on an extenfive, 

 and mutually-beneficial, trade with the fwarthy inhabitants of thofe vaft 

 regions if. 



* The conftruflion of wet doekshas been revived have fome mutilated tranflations or fragments, 



in the prefent age ; and it is one of the antient arts, Phih'nus, CHtomachus, Eumachus, Proclcs, and 



of which the moderns have afi'iimed the lionour of the great Hannibal. The works of Charon, a 



being the original inventors. It is, however, very Cartiiaginian hiftorinn, who, we are told by Suidas, 



probable, that the method of locking in the water dcfcribcd the tyrants of Europe and Afia, and 



by gates is a modern improvement, and a very ca- wrote the lives of ilhiftrious men and women, if 



pital one, on the Carthaginian wee duck. they had come down to us, would have been a 



■f Mago, a Carthaginian author, wrote a tre atife moil valuable addition to our ftock of antient hif- 



on agriculture, wliich was thought worthy of be- tory, efpecially as an antic'ote to Grecian and Ro- 



jng preferved, when all the other books found in man miiVeprcfentation. The excellent comic poet- 



the libraries of Carthage were prefented to the Af- Terence, though ranked among Roman writers, 



rican princes, and being tranflated into Latin un- was a native of Carthage. 



der the authority of the Roman fenate. He is It cannot be thought foreign to the plan of this 



quoted by Varro, Columella, and Pliny. Leo Af- work juft barely to obferve here, that the coniti- 



licanus defcribes a book, extant in his time (A. D. tution of Carthage was eftecmed one of the moll 



1506) in Barbary, called the Thcfnurtis of agricul- perfett in the world by fo great a mailer in the 



ture, which had been tranllated from the Latin fcience of politics as Arillotle ; who remarks, that 



when Manfor was king of Granata. \_Leo Jlfri- there had never been any commotion fo violent as 



canus, p. 80, ed. El%. 1632.] Qiierc, if this might materially to didurb the public tranquillity, or to 



be the work of Mago, returned to Africa, where enable any tyrant to fupprtfs the hberty of the peo- 



it would be more ufeful than in Italy? pie, and ellablilh arbitrary povv-er. \^Arifl. de repub. 



Some of the other Carthaginian writers, whofe Z. ii, c. II.] 



names only have efcaped the wreck of time, were, % We may prefume, that they had commercial 



^elides Hanno and Himilco of whofe works we jntcrcourfe with the Negroes, before th.eyemploved- 



3 G 2 



